Questioning Rudd's Christianity
May 23rd 2008 01:30
During the ABC’s program Q and A, Kevin Rudd was asked about his Christian faith. He was the first guest in the new program, answering questions from the general public, through the audience, by email and by SMS. The question asked about his faith was one that I asked myself. I had texted it in, despite believing that they wouldn’t ever ask it. I thought the ABC wouldn’t see it as a question that the general public were interested in.
But they did ask it. Not my question itself. The question came from someone else. But it was the same thing I wanted to know. So I guess they decided the general public were interested in Kevin Rudd’s Christianity. Or maybe getting at least two questions on the same thing had something to do with it.
It obviously was something that people were interested in. After the initial question, came a range of follow-up questions. God and Christianity were mentioned in a number of ways. One issue that people seemed concerned about was what influence Rudd’s faith had on his refusal to grant homosexuals the right to marry.
With that in mind, I can understand why he answered as he did. That said, I was pretty disappointed with the way he discussed his Christian faith throughout the program. He said that his Christianity played no part in his policies, as he was a secular ruler of a secular country. He also described himself as a common garden-variety Christian.
I imagine at this point the Christian right – and yes, there is a Christian right in Australia – were shaking their heads with disapproval – if perhaps a little smug self-satisfaction as well. After all, weren’t they the ones who said that Kevin Rudd wasn’t a “real Christian” in the first place? I think Kevin Rudd is a “real Christian”. Now those words can mean different things to different people. For some, it’s reserved for those people who have had a life-changing experience with Jesus, who are spirit-filled, who believe in the inerrancy of the bible and who aren’t destined for hell. For me, a “real Christian” is simply someone whose faith is real.
I not only think that Kevin Rudd’s faith is real, I think it is very important to him. That was the impression I got when listening to him speak about Christianity on one of the ABC’s religion radio programs. That was the impression I got when reading his article on Faith and Politics. That was the impression I got when hearing him speak at an Australian Christian Lobby event before the election. But anyone would have been hard-pressed to get that impression from Q and A last night.
Although Kevin Rudd never denied his Christianity, he seemed to want to distance himself from it, as though it wasn’t really important and it certainly had no influence over what he did as Prime Minister. Although I can’t claim to know Kevin Rudd’s mind, I believe this was to show there was a vast difference between himself and the Christian Right.
This would have been of particular importance considering the homosexual marriage issue. Obviously there is a question in the public’s mind about whether his refusal to allow homosexual marriages stems from his Christian faith. But this topic area of interest stems from a broader, more general, more scary question. Will a Christian Prime Minister try to impose his Christian view of morality on the Australian public? To that, Kevin Rudd firmly said no. The area of homosexual marriages had nothing to do with his Christian faith. In fact, his Christian faith didn’t influence his policies at all.
I think that many people believe there are two types of Christians. There are those who are very religious, and who fall into the right-wing fundamentalist group. Then there are those who are “common garden variety type of Christians”, to whom their faith is only a side note to their lives.
But these are not the only type of Christians. There are also those who faith is very important to them, but who disagree with the politics of the Christian right. There are those whose faith tells them that caring for people is more important than imposing rules and regulations about morality and sexuality. There are those people whose Christian faith compels them to care about issues of social justice and the environment.
During Q and A, Kevin Rudd had a perfect opportunity to show that there was a different side to Christianity in politics. Instead, he fed into the view that there are only two types of Christian politicians; those aligned with the Christian right and the “common garden variety type”. By calling himself the latter, he was distancing himself from the former. He was also ignoring the fact that a large number of devoted Christians sit firmly on the left side of politics.
I don’t think the Christian right were the only ones shaking their heads in disapproval when Kevin Rudd discussed his Christian faith. I believe that the Christian left were also shaking their heads. But whereas the Christian right might have been shaking their heads with at least some small amount of glee, the Christian left were shaking their heads with a large degree of disappointment.
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